


Put Your Arm 'Round My Collarbone

by blanketed_in_stars



Series: 52 Weeks of Wolfstar [41]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1996, Drinking, Late at Night, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5042020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Your Arm 'Round My Collarbone

**Author's Note:**

> Week 41
> 
> Title from "Putting The Dog To Sleep" by The Antlers

Remus in the gibbous moonlight is an angel. Sirius used to look at him in their cottage and wish that he could paint or compose poetry to immortalize what he saw—the sharp edges and graceful angles, and connecting it all, skin knit with gossamer scars. Even nearly twenty years later he recognizes the beauty here. But the chord it strikes in him is minor. He rises from the bed.

Underneath his bare feet, the wooden floor is cool and hardly creaks at all. Sirius pads down the stairs toward the kitchen, passing his mother’s portrait with the sound of dark muttering coming from behind the curtains. He pauses, backs up a few steps—but no, there’s no good reason to confront that particular demon tonight.

Sirius shakes his head and keeps walking. In the kitchen, he takes a glass and reaches for the tap handle—then changes his mind. He opens a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of Bin Juice. They had a bottle in the cottage, years and years ago, and it was a testament to their good taste that it stood unopened. But firewhiskey, Sirius has learned, is highly overrated. At the moment he’d drink goblin piss if it would help. He takes a swig straight from the bottle and coughs, his eyes watering. He’s not entirely sure it _isn’t_ goblin piss. But it feels good.

Movement in the doorway catches his eye, and he turns to see Kreacher caught mid-slink. “Up pretty late, don’t you think?”

Kreacher doesn’t respond for several moments. When he does, it’s in the usual sneering tone. “Kreacher devotes his life to serving the House of Black, and it keeps him up all hours of the night, but Master Sirius only—”

“Only what?” Sirius demands. “Only what, Kreacher?” He swallows another mouthful.

Kreacher bows low. “Master Sirius only asks after Kreacher’s sleep,” he says, and then much more quietly, “but he doesn’t sleep himself, no, or eat, Kreacher wonders if he’s going mad—”

Sirius kicks out; the sudden shift of balance has him grabbing at the table to stay upright. Dimly he thinks he ought to put the Bin Juice down. But he just downs some more and notes with satisfaction that Kreacher has jumped back several feet. “Get out of here,” he orders.

With a slow smirk, Kreacher does.

“Merlin,” Sirius whispers to himself, listening to the alcohol slosh around in the bottle. Called mad by a house-elf, and an absolutely cracked one to boot. He takes another drink.

The house is quiet. It is so quiet. Kreacher might just as well never have been here at all, the silence is so profound. It amplifies whatever he’s feeling, though he’s not quite sure what it is, only that he wants it to stop.

Noise, he needs noise—but he mustn’t wake Remus. Sirius creeps up the stairs and past the portrait again, to the door. Outside he can see that the courtyard is deserted, the yellow lights casting long lines of shadow over the grass. He opens the door.

Leaving isn’t an option. He knows that. Leaving would be the worst decision he could make, and with his capacity for bad decisions, that says a lot. So he won’t leave, but he opens the door a bit wider and stares into the night. Warm June air rushes to meet him. There’s no breeze.

The grass of the courtyard is a vibrant green, but under the street lamps it all looks brown, like dead fields in late autumn. Sirius can’t see much beyond that, but it’s enough to stand there and close his eyes, breathing in the smells of London. Gooseflesh steals over his bare arms.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to the sight of the courtyard, closer now, and his own bare foot about to step off the pavement and onto the grass. He jerks back and stares around—no one to see him. But what if—? So he hurries back into the house, the hateful house, where he closes the door and walks slowly down the hall.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a low laugh echoes quietly.

Sirius stops. He turns on the spot and sees his mother’s portrait, curtains shut, a veil he can’t see through. He doesn’t need to. “Hey, Mum,” he says.

His mother answers in the tone he remembers so well. “My son. Can’t you sleep?”

Sirius snorts. “As if you care.”

She continues in a ghastly affectation of motherly concern. “It isn’t good to be up so late at night. It can do terrible things to your mind.”

“I don’t think it’s the night that’s to blame.” His lips twist down. “But you know all about that, don’t you? Everyone says you went absolutely bonkers before the end.”

“What do you imagine they will say about you?”

“Can’t get much worse than what they say now.”

“Living with a werewolf.” Sirius can’t see her, but he knows how her face must be contorting into a sneer. “I swore when you left that I would never again let this house be desecrated by your presence. Yet here you are, bringing more filth with you.”

“You’re dead, Mum.” It warms him to say that, makes him feel safer. She is, after all, only a painting. “Soon we’ll be gone and it’ll just be you and old Kreacher, don’t worry. I wonder, does he snog your canvas—?”

She laughs over him. “You’re never leaving this house, you daft boy. You ought to know that by now. You’ll die here—and that half-breed will leave you before the end.”

“He won’t,” Sirius spits, something in him scraped raw. “He’s making me all right. He’s saving me.”

“Oh, my son,” she croons, “you can’t be saved.”

Sirius shoots a silencing charm at the curtains. “Like hell I can’t.” But the chill in his bones, driven away by the Bin Juice and the fresh air, has returned and settled deeper than before. “Like hell,” he says again to the dust and shadows.

Back in their room, Remus hasn’t moved. Sirius slides quietly into the bed beside him, between cold sheets that feel more like constriction than comfort. The pillow muffles his hearing and the moon has gone behind a cloud. He turns over—

“Sirius?” Remus’s voice, sleep-slowed, from behind him. “Everything all right?”

Sirius freezes, staring through the deep darkness at the wall. “Fine.”

“Your feet are cold.”

“I needed a drink.” He listens to Remus’s breathing return to a steady rhythm and closes his eyes against the night. It’s too much, being here—he should have left when he was standing in the doorway. Out into the streets, away, away, even if it means living in caves again—anywhere’s better than here.

But the body behind him, which shifts even in sleep to press closer, grounds his thoughts, calms his heart.


End file.
